


Worse than dying

by Written_prose_things



Category: Outer Banks (TV)
Genre: F/M, epilouge, my bollywood ass brain can't handle a 'non-decisive' end
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-09
Updated: 2020-05-09
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:42:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 710
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24084541
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Written_prose_things/pseuds/Written_prose_things
Summary: Epilouge
Relationships: JJ/Kiara (Outer Banks), Sarah Cameron/John B. Routledge
Kudos: 57





	Worse than dying

The months after Peterkins’ death are morbid for the pouges.

With the charges levelled against him, JJ gets packed up and shipped off to Juvenile Detention unceremoniously.

Pope doesn’t get his dream college, but he’s able to enrol at a mainland college with a lesser scholarship for the fall semester.   
When he leaves, he’s broken up with Kei. Their romantic love for each other dissolves with the adrenaline and teenage hormones that bore it.

Kei is the last pouge left on the island. She helps out around her father’s business more, learning everything she can.

On the other side of the island, Rafe starts shooting heroin. Something to get his mind off of what he’s done.   
Six months after the Sheriff’s death, the son of a prominent businessman murders himself. Ward hides the suicide letter. Shoupe calls it an OD, and the case is closed.

That leaves Wheezie as the sole inheritor of her father’s extensive empire. As the baby of the family, she’s never been told any secrets before.   
She doesn’t ever find out how John B, his father, Rafe and her father are linked. But she does find truckloads of frauds and misappropriations in his accounts.   
Ward flees to the Bahamas so that Wheezie doesn’t press charges.

A few years later, JJ returns to Outer Banks. He changed a lot. He takes up many jobs, bussing tables, assisting mechanics. It’s really easy to avoid Kei on such a small island when they both have so many responsibilities.

But Kei is stubborn and persuasive. She finds him, sitting on the deck of the château. He can’t put a façade on in front of his best friend.   
They cry like a bunch of sappy idiots, sitting in the dark, trading stories of the year they spent away for each other.   
They start spending time together again. After the next midsummers, where JJ helps Heyward with the catering, he heads to Kei’s house, where she’s protesting the bougie culture.   
  
They kiss when she opens the door, no fanfare or drama.   
Kei smiles, _no pouge on pouge macking_. JJ’s heart sinks, before he can look away, she reels him in and kisses him again.

It might be juvenile, but that’s their thing now. They have a competition going, of who says ‘seconds rule of the pouges’ first.

Across the ocean, Sarah and John B decide to lay low and maintain radio-silence until they have the gold. Their plan falls apart when Ward shows up out of the blue. But Sarah is confident in their skills.   
A few months later, they gather all the equipment they need and try to steal the gold. Ward finds them. There’s no doubt in John B’s mind that he would.

What surprises John B, is Ward’s lack of hostility. He melts when he sees his daughter and lets them take whatever they want.   
Ward is a broken man now. The fact that all his kids turned against him, kills him. It’s an unlikely end for a man from the cut, that’s for sure.

When the gold is secured and converted, John B calls Pope, Kei and JJ up. He wants them to come to the Bahamas like JJ had always said.

But they’ve got responsibilities now. It leaves John B with a bittersweet feeling when he realizes time stopped on the cusp of adulthood only for him.

He and Sarah send money to the pouges. With their share, they live a full kook life. Well, as close to a kook life, with all the charity and philanthropy they do.

A few years later, Kie JJ and Pope visit them. It’s very emotional, even JJ cries for half an hour.   
  
Sarah loves to say _all’s well that ends well_.

The pouges look at him with arched eyebrows. He smiles, they know him too well and it’s true. He still feels very useless for letting his father’s killer go scot-free.

But he explains it to the pouges when Sarah isn’t around. He tells them that he’s got everything he’s dreamed of and that it doesn’t make sense to kill Ward and take on the added responsibility of a dead body.

JJ smirks. They all know why John B doesn’t kill Ward.

_Sometimes living with guilt is worse than dying._


End file.
